Winter is an ideal time to begin bird-study, because there are no leaves
and because the birds are few and not difficult to identify. If you
learn the winter birds thoroughly, you will be ready for the rush of the
spring as old favorites return and new friends appear.
Midsummer is often a disappointing season because birds are silent and
in poor feather. At this time you will be able to study the plumages of
the young birds, however, and you will find much of interest in watching
the affairs of family life. Migrant shore-birds should be watched during
late summer.
Fall is the season of trials. Now come the restless, sombre-colored
hordes, most of them silent save for a few brief call-notes. When you
can easily identify all the fall birds, you are a pretty good
ornithologist.
In approaching a bird, common sense will warn you that you should be as
quiet as possible. You should be obscurely dressed, and if you can go
under, around, or between bushes, rather than through them, you will
cause less disturbance. Often the best way to study birds is to find a
pleasant, somewhat hidden spot and remain there for an hour, watching
all that comes by. A good bird student, in the course of his walk, will
try to visit as many different kinds of country as he can; he will visit
the ponds and marshes, the grape-vine thickets, the open fields, and the
hemlock woods of his neighborhood. He knows that in these different
regions he is likely to find different birds. In fact, unless he does
carefully study _all_ of these regions, he is not thoroughly studying
the bird-life of his locality.
You may have trouble in seeing some birds, though you pursue them ever
so tirelessly. Try kissing the back of your hand in such a manner as to
imitate the cries of a young or wounded bird. This sound will often
arouse the curiosity of the wariest bird and he will come close. I thus
made a squeaking sound once and a Robin hit me with full force on the
neck; she was so convinced that I had one of her young in my dreaded
clutches that she gave stern battle! These squeaking cries sometimes
draw even the birds of prey.